By Josh Eidelson and Loren Grush | Bloomberg
Executives at Elon Musk’s SpaceX discriminated against women, joked about sexual harassment and fired workers for raising concerns, seven former employees allege in California civil rights complaints viewed by Bloomberg.
The Hawthorne-based workers, who were fired in 2022 after circulating an open letter critical of Musk’s behavior, argue that the aerospace company’s actions violated the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. The law bans sex-based discrimination and retaliation against employees who raise concerns in the workplace. Their claims were detailed in filings with the California Civil Rights Department that were sent to SpaceX last month.
The filings open up a new front in a contentious legal battle between SpaceX and the workers, who are mostly engineers. In November 2022, the ex-employees also brought complaints about the company to the US National Labor Relations Board, saying SpaceX violated federal labor law by firing them. Last month, the NLRB’s prosecutors agreed, accusing SpaceX of illegally retaliating against the workers. In response, the Musk-led company sued the agency.
Related: SpaceX accused of unlawfully firing employees who were critical of Elon Musk
SpaceX said in its suit the NLRB accusations are likely to harm the company’s reputation and its ability to recruit new employees. If the company loses, it might also have to reinstate the workers with backpay. Now, because of the new complaints in California, SpaceX faces the threat of losing to the ex-workers at the state level, too. The California CRD can seek compensatory and punitive damages.
SpaceX, which didn’t respond to inquiries, has denied wrongdoing in the NLRB case. Companies typically have 30 days to respond to California CRD complaints.
Cases filed with the California CRD are investigated by agency staff, who can dismiss them, pursue mediation, choose to sue the company or greenlight workers to file…
Read the full article here
